


It's not so dissimilar

by korik



Series: Speak Without Words [2]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff and Angst, How Do I Tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-06
Updated: 2015-07-06
Packaged: 2018-04-07 21:42:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4278939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/korik/pseuds/korik
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>My Inquisitor, Vaeln (who experiences sensual attraction, has physical hypersensitivity and minor ASMR, and is asexual but not sex repulsed) Trevelyan, and the Commander from the Inquisition's forces have yet another conversation. </p><p>Deals with some headcanon concepts about magic, different kinds of mages, and some very real fears about becoming unable to physically move as a result of the Mark. Cullen finds some of the Inquisitor's fears to sound...familiar. They both want to be useful no matter what, and fear what happens if they fail to do so, losing to things they struggle with controlling.</p><p>I still don't know how to tag.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's not so dissimilar

The low burning light against the blue of the late evening that clung to Skyhold's walls made it look like he was moving, shifting, constantly there and half not, condemned to a partial existence. “Does it...hurt you?”

“Using magic?”

He snorts. “You're being obtuse.”

She smiles, raising her wrapped hand up, marked palm to him. “The Mark alone _does_ give me pain, yes – but my skills as a mage? No. Not until I found myself entangled with this.”

She blinks as he reaches out, rough leather fingers shivering with the flames from the fireplace. A pause swallows up his bravery, a deer caught by a hunter straying in its path on the frosty morn. “D'you – that is, would you mind - ?”

The woman shakes her head, shifting a pace closer, doing what she could to ignore that, coupled with the mane attached to his surcoat, he was yet larger still, the chill of the air at her back from the slit window. Strange, she could wander close to a dragon's shadow and feel nothing but awe and calm, but this?

The thin mouth parts, the scar curling up his face loosening; he was holding air just as she, taking into his long fingered, trembling grasp the proffered hand, stroking slowly from her inner wrist and over the decorative fabric to the base of her middle finger, stopping and never once trying to move beyond to her naked skin. “It's...amazing, I've heard. You don't use a staff, no focus – “

She tries to avoid blurting, the fire sure to have moved to her face instead, “That's not entirely true – I have one.”

The amber eyes are almost black in the light. “Oh?”

Her free hand reaches to touch along her own forehead, pushing the uncomfortable tickle of flyaway strands from her face. “It's me. Why would I need to reach beyond what's already inherent within? Templars have skills to deal with the abilities of mages – I have simply developed my own, and I find I can do more.”

He sounds skeptical, but curious still. “But you've a need to get close – many mages cannot withstand a good blade thrust.”

She grins, trying to ignore that he is still holding her hand, fingers closing slowly around hers, crumpling the bunched fabric and reminding her she _likes_ this touch. It's what she has missed most of all since coming from her home. Contact. “D'you recall how often so many mages ate or slept outside of our studies? We've little tolerance because it goes to producing, controlling, and _living with_ the forces we use.”

Cullen's lips curl, and Andraste forgive her, she wonders again what it would be like to brush her caught fingers over the lines that made them, “True enough; can you explain _your_ inclination, then? You're, well, the most _built_ mage I've ever laid eyes on if, ah, if you'll pardon the - “ he swallows now, laughs, and sets her free, those few moments too few, mumbling - “Forgive me - “

The haze in her head fades, but the longing worsens, hands slipping to her sides, avoiding the compulsion she felt to slide them behind herself, and hold her own hand, to rub her fingers over each other. “It's probably Trevelyan stock – and a stubbornness that got me in more trouble than I care to remember.” She shrugs. “I've never been sure, I just never wanted to stop.” Her pale colored eyes gaze up at him, head gently tilting to the side. “But...you didn't come here to admire my nonconformity, did you? at this hour? Did Leiliana want something, is there...an emergency?”

He laughs, rich and warm and sending a soft spiral of goosebumps down her spine, seemingly unable to hold her gaze for more than a few seconds. “Maker no.”

She persists. “More chess - ? Cullen, your impeccable skills at pretending to lose are _stellar,_ I had no idea Templars were gifted so - “

The man is quick to scoff and cut her off, waving, perhaps even flustered at being found out. “I've had years of practice, I told you - “

She interrupts, finger raising, “And I've years of practice learning how to best hit something hard with armored gloves.” The curve of her mouth is playful. “So, before we get off topic again, what _then_ is this mysterious compulsion that sends you to request my presence – and in a side room, of all things?”

His voice pitches, “Oh!” A cough, and the register of it drops again, conversely making her heart hammer higher in her throat. “Oh, I uh, _right_ , I'd asked to see you because I'd been...worried. Truthfully. You're favoring your arm.”

When she does not answer, eyes so pale blue they could be glass, he continues, cautiously pushing at the invisible boundaries, sensing the awkward thread he has stumbled across. “You do not need to suffer alone, in silence.”

There's a shake of her head, but she's not looking at him anymore. She's not _used_ to this. “I'm not alone. Every time I go out, we see to it another rift is sealed shut, and the pain lessens more and more.”

She freezes as his hand touches on her shoulder, smoothing over the fur lined jacket, the drape of the delicate stitches of the blanket she keeps with her at all times. Her gaze travels over his hand, then his face.

“Vaeln, I – you give too much. Let me help, if I can. Surely a healer - “

The way his voice cuts off lets her know he can feel her shoulders shake.

“I've moved my entire life,” she murmurs, trying to drown out the noise she knows is coming, “the worse it gets, I feel like, somehow, soon, I won't be able to use my hand anymore. Then, the rest will follow, and I'll be done. Useless.” She avoids his gaze, finding solace in the floor with its lines and cold edges. “I never wanted this... _gift_.”

What must he think of her? The Commander of the Inquisition's forces, a man dedicated to giving all he has to a cause he believes in. What would _any_ of the others think of her, they who believe in the Herald of Andraste? And she? She could help mages as she had sought to do before, fought before to do, _lied_ to do. But now she was scared, scared down to her core of not slipping away in a fight, but slipping away in a bed, crippled and subjected to the end.

“Oh, _Maker_ \- “

The hand running along her cheek causes her to blanch, tuck out of his reach and look up, and he to jolt his fingers back, apologetic, but _kind - ?_

“You _can_ do this, we'll help you, _I'll_ help you – the Inquisition,” his brows pinch and he looks away, the fire illuminating his profile, the way his lips press together in dissatisfaction, disappointment, internal self castigation. “The Inquisition be _damned_ for a moment – _I want to help you_.” Golden eyes were emphatic, filling her vision as his hand reaches out again. No longer does he shake, and the light that splays over his shoulders and gleams over the sharp edges of his pauldrons seem to grow more intense. “I'm here for you. You're stronger than this.”

What he does not seem to expect is for her to slip under his fingers after she remains so rooted like a tree, under his fingers and against the hard plate covering his breast, and his arms find themselves moving around her. He holds her as she sobs in silence, and hears his own words echo back – _'You do not need to suffer alone.'_

He tucks his head, tucks _himself_ lower, heaving out air that is not enough anymore, hoping his voice reaches her through the spasms, the altogether familiar sense he knows so intimately. “I won't leave you.”


End file.
